If they do work well, this is going to be a lot of processing power. Arguably the multi core processors, may not be the best way, beacause applications don't profit as much of multi threading as they do from faster clocks.

Well its intersting for sure and as die shrinks keep happening more and more cores are possible but I sure hope that games and sofware writers catch up.. Their's not really any games or programs that can use that processing power Yet

Actually, when you think of what most folks are doing with their computers these days, multi-cores makes a lot more sense than higher clock speed.

Multi-cores might not benefit most gamers as those are looking for pure processing power, but imagine how well multi-cores work for the average computer user who wants to run 6 or 7 non-intensive apps at once. Rather than having to share processor time, each app can have a dedicated core all to itself.

I'm not sure if XP is smart enough to do that, but folks who know a bit about the way things work can easily set it up in task manager to run individual apps on separate cores.

If I am not mistaken cache size does play a bit of a role in performance? Isn't that for the most reason why Core2 and qaud core cpus from Intel are doing so well or it is just from the sheer clock rate of the cpu. I am sorry I am bit of newb when it comes to understanding this all, I am very good at putting computers together but a little slower understanding how all it works.

If I am not mistaken cache size does play a bit of a role in performance? Isn't that for the most reason why Core2 and qaud core cpus from Intel are doing so well or it is just from the sheer clock rate of the cpu. I am sorry I am bit of newb when it comes to understanding this all, I am very good at putting computers together but a little slower understanding how all it works.

Cache size can make a big difference depending on what application you're using.

Pure calculation apps (like super-pi) get quite a boost from extra cache as do any of the folding clients.

Cache size isn't what is keeping intel at the top of the heap... the c2d design is simply that much better clock for clock compared to current AMD offerings.

Didn't Intel say that there going to have 80 or 88 cores by the end of 2009?

When did they say that?

As impressive as 12 cores sounds for mainstream computing, AMD seems to be lacking power and most games are not even quad core optmized yet, by the end of this year, we might start to see some quad-core optmization, not 6 core and far from 12 cores.

Though 12 cores on one die will be great for businesses and servers, games now are mostly GFX reliant anyway.